LoR - champion translation from league gameplay to card mechanics

im strictly talking from a "feel of the champion" perspective here, not taking gamebalance into account

Noxus:

Darius - i like the straightforwardness of the card. its easy to understand and it does a lot of damage. fits for darius. that aside, the overwhelm trait and the levelup requirement dont represent anything from league, and the champion spell should be noxian gulloutine instead of decimate. compared to other cards, these mechanics do not evoke darius any more than any other bruiser type. Draven - his low toughness with the quick strike fit his glass cannon adc feel. while the discard doesnt translate into anything from LoL, it feels "risky", which is how draven gameplay is most of the time. his spell (whirling death) is spot on and i really like his level up animation as well (crowd chants: DRAVEN) Vladimir - he leeches health and is tanky via regeneration. solid enough. unfortunately, nothing else. and he damages everything BUT opposing minions, which is a little strange. but still hes very recognizable from his league representaion. Katarina - she jumps in and out and is hard to get rid of. pretty good. her jumps feel impactful and a game can be decided with one more or less jump. her spell fits good too. it feels a little odd that in league, she is the one doing the damage, while in LoR her power truly lies within the other champs and followers gaining extra attacks from her jumps. this gives more of a commander feel than an assassin.

Piltover and Zaun

Teemo - its hard for me to get over teemo being in PnZ, taking the spot of so many cool champs that are actually from there. yea, ok, they are establishing that he buys the shrooms in zaun, but still... that aside, his mechanics are really good. hes got the stealth, he has the shrooms and the shroom mechanic is a little random and can feel "unfair", just like the humorous troll feel he has in LoL. Ezreal - With the elusive trait representing the jumps, his level up requirement that needs a deck full of direct damage spells and his effect adding a trueshot barrage to every spell cast, ezreal constantly pokes for small amounts of damage. just like in league. pretty solid imo. Heimerdinger - He doesnt have a lot, he builds turrets and thats it, but thats his feel in league aswell, so i think it works fine. Jinx - The discard mechanic doesnt represent anything directly, but like with draven, it at least feels risky and fast. her stats with quick attack also fit the adc feel. The super mega death rocket is visually good and has AoE, as it should. I feel like they should have done something with the jinx Q, showing her switching from minigun to rocket launcher. to me thats the strongest association with jinx gameplay.

Ionia

Yasuo - Yasuos ability to damage stunned or recalling targets, with the possibility to do it to the whole team, is a really creative way to incorporate yasuos ulti into the game. the visuals and the gameplay significance are also spot on. i still miss his other abilities though. his dash, shield and, above all else, the wind wall are very iconic for the champion and i think at least one of them shouldve been shown. the ulti effect is still excellent. shen - he shields an allied unit and is tanky. so far so good. but him buffing other units attack feels awkward and he really should have challenger to represent his taunt. his spell being the ulti fits fine. Zed - His shadow creation and his combat trick to switch places via his spell hit the mark pretty good i think. nothing much else to say. Karma - She is the reason i started to think about all this in the first place. This card has nothing to do with anything about Karma. This could be the mechanics for anyone, really. In league she has a projectile, shield, crowd control, the ability to shield or speed up allies and to buff her spells with damage or bigger shields. she has SO MUCH that could easily be translated to card mechanics, yet she has none of these things. She creates random spells for some reason. look at the card mechanics without art, cardname or lore text and try to find any hint that this could be Karma. I really do not understand.

shadow isles

Kalista - her souldbound effect giving +2 attack combines her passive and the dmg proc from her W in league pretty elegantly. also, her revive effect fits the feel of her soulbound mate surviving and coming back and the spear as her spell is a good choice. pretty much everything kalista does is there, aside from the ghosts. thresh - he has the lantern, that does exactly what it does in league, the ulti as his spell, the hook, with a great animation, and he consumes souls, like his LoL passive. thresh might just be the best representation of a league champ mechanically. Elise - She transforms into her spider form, which is cool and surely the most obvious thing to show. Also she summons spiderlings with her skill and her spell. its good enough, but the fearsome and the challenger buff to other spiders dont really resonate with my lol feel of the champion. Hecarim - him charging with 2 spectral riders is beautiful and iconic. theres nothing much else to him, but i think fearsome instead of overwhelm wouldve been more fitting.

Demacia

Lux - she comes in with a shield, creates shields with her spell and her final spark is good. i like that with the level up mechanic it feels like in league, where lux can reach a point mid to late game where she is spamming lasers. also the overwhelm trait of final spark makes it feel like its multi target. Garen - Having regenerate is arguably more Garens theme than any other league champ (maybe mundo), so its a really easy choice to give it to his card aswell. unfortunately, thats basically it. His spell represents his spin, but it being a game ending board wipe makes it not feel like garens most basic move at all. his ability to rally is fitting lore wise, but has nothing to do with garen gameplay either. like with darius, its kinda more ok for garen to feel a little bland and vanilla, because he does in league too. But they surely couldve done more with his card. lucian - the senna mechanic is cool lorewise. and the card feels like a squishy early game adc with lots of fast damage potential. but nothing actually shows anything lucian does. his double shot passive, his culling ultimate and his W projectile could all have been built into a card and shown in some way. maybe his double strike or rally are meant to represent his dash, as an engage tool, but i think it doesnt really feel like it (although the card art to his spell is literally him dashing). Its not quite as bad as karma, but i dont like the design. At least the allies dying level up requirement can represent him farming with a little good will. (edit: as greenlore pointed out, double shot passive is totally represented in the double strike. and quite good to be honest. ) Fiora - the way they built her gameplay around hitting the four vitals with the really neat animations for it really capture her duellist identity imo. she has no riposte unfortunately, but what they gave her is beautiful. (edit: she totally has riposte as her champ spell. brainfarted on that one)

Freljord

Ashe - Her freezing an enemy when attacking represents her passive well enough. in LoL she just slows them, but i think its still good. Her arrow looks good and feels adequately impactfull, but it freezing multiple targets feels off. shes not bad, but not good either. Anivia - She has her rebirth passive and its just like in league where you oftentimes have enough to kill her, but not enough to clear the egg afterward. her AoE damage when attacking is a good recreaton of her ult in mechanics. i really wouldve wanted to see the wall, but her passive clearly was the most important aspect and they nailed that. tryndamere - as with the other bruisers, he is straightforward and easy to understand, but here, they found the main thing everyone thinks of with trynd and built it in. he doesnt die and does lots of damage. perfect. his spell being a gigantic stat buff helps recreating tryndas potentially super high damage crits, but it doesnt really have anything to do with him. having a self heal or the challenger trait (the chicken) would be fitting here. braum - the regeneration to show his overall tankiness and the challenger for his CCs is workable, but not much really. "Braum stops projectiles with a gigantic ice shield" surely is the strongest association most people have with him, so they shouldve done something with that. Also they have a freeze mechanic, and braum freezes targets with his passive, but they gave him challenger. And the poro creation is lore related obviously, but has nothing to do with ingame braum either.

all in all i think they did pretty good overall and found some really creative ways to capture the identities of the champs (the visuals are great across the board), with a few botches that feel out of place, next to the adequate - excellent rest of the cast.

the best are thresh, kalista and probably zed. you would actually know which champ it is just by reading the rules i imagine. and thats quite a feat by the gamedesigners. and karma and lucian are the tragic fallouts. (edit: actually, lucian is done well, as was pointed out by greenlore. but nothing will make me feel satisfied with karma im afraid)

why did i write this? i have no idea. but i did...